


for all the love and gold (don't just do as you are told)

by guiltylights



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, a look into Nami and Sanji's relationship on the ship as treasurer and cook, aka they just entered the Grand Line and are on Going Merry, but pre-Alabasta, or it might be both, some references to angst but not like full out angst ya know, the answer is Neither, this is set post-Drum Island, what happens when Nami asks Sanji to cut down on spending for Luffy's food?, what will win Sanji's love for women or pride as a chef
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 19:09:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20644214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guiltylights/pseuds/guiltylights
Summary: ‘Why?’Nami asks, again, and when Sanji falls silent at that again, Nami feels her frustration rise. ‘Couldn’t you have justtold me?Or why didn’t you just cut Luffy’s diet down, like I said? He eats so much, surely he doesn’t need all of that food, if you could’vejust—!’‘No.’Nami pauses. ‘What?’‘No, Nami,’ says Sanji, and though he looks almost regretful to be saying it to her, Sanji’s voice is strong and unwavering. ‘I won’t cut down Luffy’s meal portions.’Nami asks Sanji to reduce the amount of money spent on grocery shopping.





	for all the love and gold (don't just do as you are told)

**Author's Note:**

> [Time started: 14th Sept 19, 4:28pm;– ]
> 
> This is set post-Drum Island but pre-Alabasta, and I make the assumption that there is an unnamed island along the way they can stop by for supplies. I also assume that it takes a little over a week to sail from that island to Alabasta. That could be straight-up wrong depending on what is said in canon, but do please forgive the transgression if it is! It’s been a long time since I’ve watched the Alabasta arc, so I really don’t remember what the timeline is for it anymore. 
> 
> I’ve also never written in Nami’s perspective before, so this was interesting.

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It starts with a simple request. An offhand remark, really. 

‘Do we really have to spend this much on Luffy for food?’ Nami complains.

Sanji looks up. ‘I beg your pardon, dear Nami?’

At the kitchen table, Nami leafs through the ship’s expenditure log. She runs a finger down the records. There’s an entry for money for groceries at almost every single island they stop at, sometimes even twice if they’re at the island for long enough, and attached to each entry is a hefty price tag. Nami sighs.

‘He just eats so much, you know? Does he even need all of that? I mean, it makes sense when it’s just after a fight and he needs to recover, I guess, but _all _the _time?’ _

Nami looks to Sanji, who’s stopped washing the dishes at the kitchen sink to turn to look at her, and gets an idea. And that’s how it starts, really.

‘Hey, hey, Sanji, is there some way for you to cut down on the food expenses somehow? It’ll be wonderful if we could have some money saved up.’

Sanji pauses, before laughing nervously. ‘Oh, I don’t know, my sweet Nami, Luffy _does _have to eat a lot—'

Nami clasps her hands together. ‘Just a little bit? Enough to save some money, that’s all! Please? For me?’ She bats her eyelashes and pushes her lower lip out just so, knowing that Sanji finds it impossible to say no to her once she gets all big-eyed on him like this.

Predictably enough, Sanji melts. ‘Of course, darling Nami! Anything for you!’

Grinning, Nami turns back to the logbook. ‘Yay! Thank you Sanji, you’re the best!’

Busy scribbling down the budgeting for the next few months, Nami doesn’t notice the way Sanji turns back to the dishes with a conflicted but determined look to his face.

.

.

.

At the next island they stop at, the amount of money Sanji asks to spend on groceries is less than before.

Nami almost can’t believe it. Nami hands over the money, a whole six-thousand beri less than previously (which isn’t a lot considering that Sanji is going off to buy weeks’ worth of food, but hey, any money saved is money saved), and watches as Sanji gets off the boat to do food shopping. They’ve only been sailing the Grand Line together for a little while but Nami had already given up hope on the idea that expenditure on Luffy’s food could _ever _be decreased, but it turns out that Sanji has managed to figure out a way to do it. Who knows _what _kind of sorcery or juggling Sanji did to be able to reduce the amount of money that was being spent, but so long as money is being saved and Luffy isn’t complaining, Nami isn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Dinner that night is as chaotic and noisy as usual. Chopper, the newest addition to their odd little crew, has yet to learn for himself what it means to “fight for his meal” at the table, and is steadily robbed of the food on his plate by Luffy as time goes by. Nami, who has learned her lesson a long time ago and now keeps a judicious eye on her plate at all times, can only sigh. (Though Luffy has learned to steal less from her than everybody else—unlike the others, Nami isn’t above jabbing her fork straight through Luffy’s rubbery hands to keep them pinned to the table, captain or no captain, and the last time she’d done that Luffy could only watch, wailing, as the other members took the opportunity to take back their food from Luffy’s plate and then some, out of spite and out of revenge. No, Nami isn’t sorry. They’re pirates, after all, they do what they want.) Nami eyes Luffy’s plate; Luffy’s portion doesn’t look like it’s any less than it was before, but well, maybe Sanji’s only planning on rationing when they’re out at sea for real.

Nami looks over. Sanji’s taken pity on tiny Chopper, who looks close to tears at having had his meal stolen from right under his nose, and is scraping the last of his own portion into Chopper’s plate, swatting Luffy’s greedy hands with barks of ‘_that’s not for you, you dumb rubber man, hands off!’ _He’s always been too nice for his own good about things like this. Nami hopes Sanji’s eaten enough for himself.

And then Luffy takes the opportunity to try stealing a cut of lamb off of Vivi’s plate as the princess is consoling the little reindeer doctor, and Nami forgets all about Sanji as she rushes in to save Vivi’s dinner.

.

.

.

It’s been about a week at sea, and Nami is starting to be suspicious.

It doesn’t _seem_ like Luffy’s food portions have been going down in volume. His plate is heaping full of meat joints and steak cuts every meal time as per usual, and Nami cannot for the life of her figure out _where _the money Sanji saved is _coming from. _Maybe Sanji bought cheaper meat, but the amount that their ship has to buy just to keep Luffy sated means that not even skimping on quality would result in a six-thousand beri scrimping. It’s also possible that Luffy is being fed more fish, which they can get on their own while out at sea with minimal cost, but Nami hasn’t spotted any significant increase of seafood in Luffy’s diet, so that can’t possibly be it. Nami doesn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth—if this kind of saving continued every time they did grocery shopping, they could save a sizable amount of emergency money in just a few months—but at the same time, Nami doesn’t like not knowing where her money goes or where it comes from. She’s tried asking Sanji himself where the money came from, but every time she does, Sanji merely smiles and comes up an excuse that is so well-crafted that it can’t be anything but an outright lie.

Nami pores over the expenditure logbook one more time, and finding no answers, sighs and snaps it shut. The kitchen is quiet, for once; Sanji, who is normally an ever-present shadow in the kitchen, is out on the deck supervising Luffy, Usopp and Chopper’s fishing. (Luffy, if left to his own devices, would often eat the bait, no matter what it was.) Nami glances out of the porthole. She can just about see Sanji’s figure, always in that lean black suit of his no matter the weather, yelling at Luffy as he attempts to sneak the bait again, cigarette clenched between his teeth. He seems to be smoking a lot more recently, if that’s even possible. The ashtray on top the kitchen table is overflowing.

The kitchen door opens and Zoro comes striding in. He glances around the kitchen.

‘Oh, the cook isn’t here?’ He grins sharply. ‘Sweet.’ He heads straight to the refrigerator and starts rummaging around, emerging triumphantly with a bottle of alcohol.

Nami smiles sweetly at him from the dining table. ‘Two-thousand beri for me to not tell Sanji.’

Zoro glowers. ‘Witch. Tell him, I don’t care.’

Nami pouts. ‘You’re no fun.’

‘Tch.’ Zoro pops the cork off the bottle and starts chugging, stopping only after a good half of the bottle is gone. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Nami stares at the alcohol clenched loosely in Zoro’s hand.

‘Hey, Zoro.’

‘Mm?’

‘Has there been a decrease in the amount of booze in the fridge, recently?’

Zoro frowns. ‘Not that I noticed. It’s about the same amount as usual.’ Zoro leans against the counter. ‘Why’re you asking?’

Nami sighs and props her head up against her palm. ‘At the last island we stopped at, Sanji managed to spend six-thousand beri less on groceries than before.’

‘Heh, really?’ Zoro grins. ‘Aren’t you usually over the moon about this sort of thing, though?’

Nami scowls. ‘I _am! _It’s just that I can’t figure out _how.’ _

Zoro raises an eyebrow. ‘Does it matter?’

‘I mean, not _really, _I’d just like to know, so I can be assured that the money wasn’t conjured up from somewhere inexplicable.’ Nami scrubs a frustrated hand through her short hair. ‘Sanji keeps telling me that the money is saved from buying less meat for Luffy, but Luffy’s meal portions haven’t been going down at _all _so I know that’s a lie.’

‘He told you that he saved the money from buying less food for _Luffy?’ _Zoro snorts. ‘That curly-brows must be a bigger idiot than I thought, if he thought that excuse would fly.’

Nami waves a hand. ‘You can’t exactly blame him. That’s what I told him to do, after all.’

That gets Zoro to straighten up.

‘He _promised_ you that he’ll cut down on grocery expenditure for Luffy?’

‘Because I was complaining about the amount of money we were spending on feeding Luffy, yeah.’

‘Hm.’ 

The look on Zoro’s face nettles Nami, for some reason. ‘What?’ She snaps.

Zoro’s eyes flick to the ashtray on the kitchen table. ‘He’s been smoking a lot more, hasn’t he?’

Thrown off by the sudden change of topic, Nami glances at the ashtray again. ‘Well, yes, I guess. What’s that have to do with anything?’

‘Just wondering, that’s all. Did he only start smoking more after the last island?’

Nami frowns, and thinks. ‘I guess so? But, again, what does that have to do with—’

Something dawns on Nami then. A possibility, dark and horrible, crosses Nami’s mind, and Nami grits her teeth and stands up abruptly, furious. At Sanji, if he’s doing what she thinks he’s doing, but mostly at herself, for having allowed it in the first place and for not noticing it for so long.

Zoro doesn’t move as she strides past him towards the door. But just before she opens the door, he says, ‘don’t beat yourself up over it. You couldn’t have known.’

Nami stops.

‘But I _should’ve,’ _she says, hand shaking around the doorknob. She should’ve guessed. She _knows _Sanji, she should’ve _known. _

Zoro doesn’t say anything to that, and it’s both a reassurance and a reproach. Nami yanks the door open, and Zoro takes the opportunity to slip outside. Nami strides out, leans out over the railing, and says, ‘oh, Sanji?’

Sanji looks up from where he had been pulling on Usopp’s nose for letting a catch get away. ‘Yes, dear Nami?’ He asks.

Nami smiles, sweet as marzipan and poisonous as cyanide.

‘A word, please.’

.

.

.

Sanji sits himself at the dining table with the wariness of someone who senses that they might be in trouble but does not know for what. Nami slides into the seat opposite him, folds her hands together and rests her chin on top of them, and cuts right to the chase.

‘Sanji, did you save six-thousand beri on grocery shopping by not buying any food for yourself?’

From the way Sanji stiffens and immediately avoids her eye, Nami knows that she’s correct. Her fingers clench.

‘Why,’ and Nami’s voice is low, ‘would you do such a _stupid thing?’ _

Sanji tries for a reassuring smile, but that only serves to incense Nami further. ‘I think there must have been a mistake?’ He tries.

Nami slams her hands down on the table. ‘Cut the crap, Sanji, and don’t lie to me! I know that you didn’t actually buy less meat for Luffy to eat, so that money saved has to come from _somewhere, _and the only place I can think you saved on is—’ Nami breaks off abruptly, balling her hands into fists atop the wooden table.

In hindsight, Nami doesn’t know how she didn’t notice it before. In the past week, despite the fact that Sanji always sat with them at the dinner table Nami doesn’t recall a single instance of seeing him actually holding up food to his own mouth; the closest that she can recall is him scraping portions into Chopper’s plate that first night (and isn’t that just the icing on the cake, that Sanji would willingly give up the little food he _does _portion out for himself to someone else he thinks need it more?). Nami doesn’t doubt that Sanji _has_ been eating, he isn’t so stupid as to deprive himself to the point of starvation, but Nami also doesn’t doubt that Sanji has been pushing the limits of how long he can go without eating as much as he can. Looking at him now, Nami can see that Sanji is just a bit paler than usual, and as Nami watches, Sanji’s hands shake. He’s fiddling with his fingers as if he doesn’t know what to do with himself; he reaches up to his chest, but Nami beats him to it, reaching over to pluck out the crumpled pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket and placing it on the table.

‘You’ve been smoking a lot more, recently,’ Nami says, quietly. ‘Nicotine suppresses the appetite, doesn’t it?’

Sanji doesn’t respond. Nami looks down at the cigarette packet, at how her fingers are still curled around the cardboard packaging, and feels tired.

‘Bellemere used to smoke a lot, too.’ She says.

When Nami looks up from the cigarette packet, Sanji looks surprised and also just a bit lost. ‘Nami—’ He begins.

_‘Why?’ _Nami asks, again, and when Sanji falls silent at that again, Nami feels her frustration rise. ‘Couldn’t you have just _told me? _Or why didn’t you just cut Luffy’s diet down, like I said? He eats so much, surely he doesn’t need all of that food, if you could’ve _just—!’_

‘No.’

Nami pauses. ‘What?’

‘No, Nami,’ says Sanji, and though he looks almost regretful to be saying it to her, Sanji’s voice is strong and unwavering. ‘I won’t cut down Luffy’s meal portions.’

Nami is at a loss. ‘Why not?’ She asks.

Sanji reaches out to the packet of cigarettes on the table, pulls one out, and lights it up. Nami watches and waits, impatient but not willing to push. After a few drags on the cigarette, Sanji opens his mouth to speak.

‘I’m a cook.’ His voice is low and measured, even as he directs his gaze to the wooden table in front of him. ‘As the cook it’s my job to feed people on this ship, and to feed them until they’re full and satisfied. Luffy may eat a lot, but he eats that much because he _needs _that much to be full. When it comes to Luffy and his appetite, it isn’t about greed. It’s about _need,_ and I— as the chef, I can’t ignore that.’

Sanji lifts his eyes up from the table to look Nami firmly in the eye, and he is almost apologetic about it, but not quite. ‘So I won’t just cut down on our captain’s meal orders, my dear Nami. I can’t. I’m sorry. I should've told you.’

Nami’s heart clenches all the more at the way Sanji almost seems to think this is _his _fault, rather than hers. If only she hadn’t asked for that stupid favour. If only she’d realised then how Sanji would’ve taken things, how Sanji would’ve decided to solve the problem. All of this could’ve been avoided, then. 

‘…It’s not your fault, Sanji,’ Nami says, and she finds herself gentling her voice to impossible tones as Sanji looks at her. ‘I’m sorry, too. I should’ve thought more about what I was asking back then.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Sanji says, promptly, immediately, just as Nami knew that he would. And Nami holds up a hand and shakes her head in response.

‘No, it was. I couldn’t have known, but I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that in the first place. It was unfair of me. And before you can protest,’ she adds on warningly as Sanji opens his mouth as though to argue, ‘I’ll have you know that trying to take all the blame for yourself is going to make me even more mad, so _do not, _okay?’

Sanji looks torn between fighting for Nami’s honour on her behalf and heeding her wishes, but in the end decides on keeping his mouth clamped shut, and for that, Nami is grateful.

Nami stands up from her seat and stretches, before turning back around to wag a finger into a startled Sanji’s face. ‘Now promise me! Don’t ever do this again, okay? We don’t have to save the extra cash. Food is food after all, it’s a necessity. We can’t skimp out on things like eating. So promise me!’

‘Er—’

_‘Promise me!’ _

‘I promise, I promise—’

‘Good. And _tell me _next time I’m giving you a request you won’t fulfil, don’t just keep it to yourself! Now—’ Nami walks towards the kitchen sink, and starts poking around the cupboard for a frying pan.

‘Um. Darling Nami, what are you doing?’

Nami straightens up and shoots an impatient look over her shoulder. ‘I’m cooking you a meal, what does it look like I’m doing?’

‘Huh?’

‘I’m going to cook you something,’ Nami says, again. ‘As an apology for this entire situation. This is a very special service, I would normally charge someone at _least _six-thousand beri for this experience, but well, consider it free this time round, hm?’ And Nami throws in a wink for good measure.

Sanji, as if right on cue, swoons on the spot. _‘This is the grandest honour I will ever receive in my life,’ _he gushes. _‘To be able to taste your cooking, I have been blessed—’_

And apologetic or no, that’s about the limit to the patience Nami has for Sanji’s fawning. ‘Alright, I got it, yes, shoo shoo,’ she says, flapping a hand in Sanji’s direction as she rummages in the refrigerator for some chicken. ‘Do me a favour and chase Luffy and the others into getting a good catch today, hm?’

Sanji’s face creases momentarily in confusion. ‘How come?’

‘Well, you’re going to be eating proper meals from now on.’ She says, frankly. ‘And that means we don’t have enough food on this ship to feed everybody, no? So tell Luffy to catch some fish, won’t you?’ Nami taps her chin in a theatrical display of thoughtfulness. ‘I’ve been wanting seafood for a while now, too, so this works out just as well. So, if you don’t mind?’

A look of understanding and gratefulness flashes across Sanji’s face, before he’s reeling out of the door singing, ‘_yes, Nami! _Oi, you lugheads over there, you better have not eaten the bait and actually caught something—!’

Smiling, Nami turns back to the chicken on the cutting board, and focuses on dicing it up. She’s even thinking about sparing a few of her precious oranges, to make Bellemere’s special orange sauce to go with the chicken. It’s her fault this time round, after all. She should make amends.

Zoro’s voice rings through her head. _You couldn’t have known. _

Yes. Yes she couldn’t. But now she does, and she’s never going to make a mistake like having her friends starve for the sake of money again.

Because what’s the use of treasure without her friends, anyway?

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**Author's Note:**

> In all the instances I’ve written Sanji he’s been either abrasive and mouthy (as he usually is with the guys), or he’s been a sad vulnerable mess (as he is when confronting his life’s issues, like in Whole Cake Island), which is also coincidentally my favourite way of seeing Sanji as a character. But in this fic I was trying to balance how Sanji’s pride as a cook might war with his incessant need to bend over backwards for women, and so the Sanji that interacts with Nami in this fic comes out almost subdued in a way, which is quite interesting. I like examining different aspects of Sanji’s character. 
> 
> Anyway, if you think Sanji is stupid in this fic, you are correct. A big part of this fic was me trying to point out how Sanji’s “chivalry”, when mixed with his own ideas of self-sacrifice, can actually result in the most awful of outcomes in certain situations no matter how benign. The idea of Sanji and starvation in this fic is actually a much darker interpretation of his issues than I think might actually be the case; if Sanji had managed his own trauma well in the years after it happened I imagine that he would’ve drilled into himself healthy eating habits that would persist come hell or high water. But in this fic I wanted to consider what would happen if that WASN’T the case. Add unstable trauma management with Sanji’s self-sacrificing tendencies and ridiculous chivalry towards women, and ta-da, you get this horrible decision he makes that is actually more insidious the more you think about it. But I did try to make the ending a bit more light-hearted in the end because ultimately it’s about Sanji moving forward, about Nami moving forward, and it’s about Nami and Sanji understanding each other and moving forward with this from now on. At this point in the story the Straw-Hat pirates probably don’t understand each other as well as they would further on, which is why I thought to set it as early as I do; they’re navigating newer waters here, and like this incident here there are bound to be a few mistakes. The key is to talk about it, of course. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! Leave comments or kudos if you liked this, especially comments, they make my day :) I also have a [tumblr](http://guilty-lights.tumblr.com/), if you wanna drop by and scream at me about One Piece! I’m quite bad at replying messages in general, but I try my best >< 
> 
> [Time ended: 15th Sept 19, 2:15am;– ]


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